BLADES TRIES TO START OVER

After Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Brian Blades was convictedof manslaughter by a Florida jury on Friday, June 14, he spentthe weekend as if in a trance. He got through his sister'swedding on Saturday and spent Sunday, Father's Day, with his twodaughters. "When I woke up Monday morning, I thought, What am Iabout to face?" Blades told SI last week. Upon arriving at theBroward County courthouse for sentencing that day, says Blades,he ducked into a small waiting room and read the Bible. He sayshe recited the 23rd Psalm to himself as he entered thecourtroom. "Fifteen minutes later," Blades says, "there was ablessing. The Lord promised to take care of me, and He did."

The Lord and Judge Susan Lebow. In a decision that left somecourtroom observers in shock, Lebow--maintaining that theprosecution had failed to prove its case--ruled in favor of adefense motion for a directed verdict and reversed the jury'sdecision that Blades was guilty of culpable negligence in theJuly 1995 shooting death of his cousin Charles Blades. Insteadof sentencing Blades to prison for up to 10 years, Lebow set himfree.

However, Blades's legal troubles are not over. Prosecutor PeterMagrino filed a notice of appeal the day after Lebow's decision,which could result in the reinstatement of the guilty verdictwithin 18 months. According to Magrino's research, there havebeen five criminal cases in Florida in which a judge entered adirected verdict of not guilty after a jury had found adefendant guilty. In all five cases, he says, the guiltyverdicts were reinstated. Even if the appeal is denied, Bladesmay still find himself back in the defendant's seat; inSeptember, Marchelle Henry, the former wife of Charles and themother of his teenage daughter, Crystal, filed a wrongful-deathsuit against Blades. According to testimony by Wilbur Peterson,a friend of Brian's who was in Brian's townhouse at the time ofthe shooting, Charles and Brian were wrestling over a handgunwhen the gun fired accidentally and killed Charles.

"We all had our own definitions of culpable negligence," saidFrederick Black, the jury foreman, after the trial. "He did dosomething wrong. Yes, he did." But for now the 30-year-old widereceiver, who in March got a three-year, $4.5 million contractfrom the Seahawks, has a new life. He was in Los Angeles lastweek to appear in Jerry McGuire, a film that features acharacter based partly on his agent, Drew Rosenhaus. Blades,whom Seattle fullback Steve Smith calls a "playmaker and a teamleader," says he is hopeful and optimistic as he looks towardthe upcoming season. Considering what happened to him in thecourtroom, it's easy to understand why.

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything